Richard Burkhart/Savannah Morning News Savannah Bee Company employees Kate Dowdle, Laura Latture, and Treva Moore sample some of the varities of Mead which will be offered at the Broughton Street store.

Lesley Conn/Savannah Morning News Sean Brandon, city of Savannah's Management Services bureau chief, explains proposed changes to the alcohol ordinance at a November City Council workshop. He used flavored water, not wine, for demonstration purposes.

Savannah’s alcohol ordinance has enough legal oomph to keep beer sales 100 yards from schools and 250 feet from a polling place on Election Day.

It includes nary a word to consider that discriminating shoppers may want to sip a honey-based mead at the Savannah Bee Co. before buying.

Nor does it direct how the city shall regulate the considerate shop owner who wants to offer a glass of champagne during a manicure or a glass of wine at an after-hours party.

Ah, but give it time.

Savannah city officials, after encountering several instances where outdated or conflicting regulations weren’t keeping up with current market situations, are reviewing the city’s alcohol ordinance. They hope to have revisions before City Council for approval in about two months.

“We’ve been seeing this blurring between retailing and dispensing and we need some clarification,” said Sean Brandon, bureau chief of management services.

Under city ordinance and state law, if an establishment sells by the glass, it’s a bar, but if it sells by the bottle, it’s a package store.

Another part of the alcohol ordinance requires that if an establishment wants to sell liquor with food, it needs to be a restaurant.

City regulators are encountering nail salons that want to offer champagne, or wine shops that sell by the glass or by the bottle. Then there’s Savannah Bee, which wants to let customers sample a product before they buy the bottle.

Savannah Bee founder and CEO Ted Dennard first sought a city alcohol license in July. After several postponements, the city granted him a temporary license while it worked on revising the ordinance.

The problem, Brandon said, is that Savannah Bee is a retail store. To sell by the bottle, it has to be a package store, but no one younger than 21 is allowed in a package store. That wouldn’t work for the child-friendly Bee store, which argued its mead wasn’t a hard liquor.

“The ordinance really didn’t know what to do with that,” Brandon said.

Dennard hasn’t introduced mead at his Broughton Street shop, but hopes to within the month once the new display area is built.

He appreciates the cooperation from the city, and said once the city has a new ordinance, Savannah Bee will fully comply. State regulators, he said, also were cautious.

“They wanted to make sure they knew what we were selling, too,” he said.

Mead is made much like wine. Honey is diluted with water, then mixed with yeast and allowed to ferment. Fruit, grape juice, spices or other additives change the flavor.

“It’s the original alcoholic beverage,” Dennard said. “There are a million variations.”

Until Dennard is confident he can consistently produce a quality product, Savannah Bee will carry mead from other suppliers. He and his staff have sampled dozens of bottles, which can offer tastes similar to a dry white wine or a sweet, fruity dessert wine.

Two favorites are from the St. Ambrose Meadery in Michigan, which already provides some other honey products, and Monks Mead in Athens.

Under the proposed ordinance, the maximum sampling size allowed would be 3 ounces, and only 9 ounces could be dispensed within two hours.

Another issue is that over the years, as new sections of the ordinance were added, there are conflicting definitions for wine and other basic regulatory components.

“What we’re trying to do is make it a bit more rational for the public to understand and our people to enforce,” said City Attorney Brooks Stillwell.

That’s a reassurance for Ruel Joyner, owner of 24e, the Broughton Street furniture design store and president of the Downtown Business Association. He once had a police officer stop in at an after-hours party Joyner hosted for clients. Joyner had security at the locked door and checked ID as adult guests entered. The officer explained it was still a violation of the city’s ordinance, but let him off with a warning, he said.

It doesn’t make sense, Joyner believes, especially in a town where an adult can walk the street with a 16-ounce open container of alcohol.

“Even though we were adults, even though I wasn’t selling the alcohol, even though we were doing something that normal adult people are trying to do, we were still somehow breaking the law,” he said, adding he was glad the city “is being very helpful about fixing some of these Draconian laws.”